Voting Then and Now

CLICK IMAGE to view full, high-resolution, downloadable, and printable PDF. (The colored chart and legend are from 2016, as attributed in the fine print on the chart itself. The blue words in boxes are all mine.)

Do you remember this pie chart from the 2016 election results?

It demonstrates these very important points:

  • Trump voters (red) roughly equaled Clinton voters (blue).

(Remember, she won the Popular vote, while he won the Electoral vote.)

  • The largest group of eligible voters (peach) DID NOT VOTE.

(There are lots of reasons why people don’t vote, but many of them simply think their votes won’t matter.)

  • Even those who voted 3rd party (gold) could have made a difference.

(They preferred a candidate who couldn’t win.)

This is why I’m encouraging everyone to vote whether or not they think it will matter.

You also need a voting plan: Do you have a voting plan?

The Purple States of America

CLICK IMAGE to interact with map.

Maybe your “red” or “blue” state is closer to “purple” than you think!

No U.S. state ever votes 100% Democratic (blue) or 100% Republican (red), and yet this is how we are most accustomed to seeing our electoral maps illustrated. This INTERACTIVE MAP shows proportional shades of purple, i.e. states that voted more Democratic are bluer shades of purple, and states that voted more Republican are redder shades of purple, depending on the percentages of the total vote.

CLICK ON THE YEARS at the top to see how your state may have fluctuated from one shade of purple to another over the years. For example, it shows how New Mexico, where I live, is bluer now, after having not too long ago been redder. It’s considered a “blue” state at the moment, but it wouldn’t take much apathy on the part of Democrats to turn it “red” again.

Whichever way you lean, you may be more closely aligned with your neighbors than you thought!